Uses of National Household Travel Survey Data in - NHTS Home ...

Energy Consumption
Using National Travel Data in State Energy Master Planning: Gaps and Opportunities in National
Transportation Data
Authors:
Buehler, Ralph; Lovrien, Nora
Transportation Research Board - 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
TRB 87th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD
Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting
2008
Abstract:
Since the oil crises of the 1970s states, cities, and other local governments around the United States have
participated in energy planning exercises with the purpose of reducing vulnerability to future crises. In the
last decade as climate change has emerged as a major challenge of the 21st Century, state governments
are also setting greenhouse gas reduction goals. The transportation sector makes up as much as 29% of
total energy consumption in the United States. Individual level travel is arguably the most amorphous
sub-set of the transportation sector that is nonetheless responsible for a substantial portion of the sector‟s
energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. This paper reviews some of the challenges faced by state
energy planners to truly understanding the nature of energy use in individual, on-road daily travel
behavior. It is imperative for practitioners to have a greater understanding of individuals‟ travel choices
and behavior, from the levers that guide mode choice, to the type of vehicle chosen, the style of driving
practiced, and the rigor of the vehicle‟s maintenance. The paper uses the case study of the New Jersey
Energy Master Plan to illustrate some of the challenges of designing effective policies aimed at reducing
energy consumption in the individual, on-road transportation sector. The paper then suggests that by
extending existing national travel surveys, more helpful energy use data may emerge. This may help to
focus efforts of avoiding or abating transportation sector emissions, by explicitly linking individual travel
behavior and energy use. We demonstrate this approach using the 2001 NHTS.
Subject areas and Index Terms
Energy; Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic
and Transport Planning
Climate change; Energy consumption; Greenhouse gases; Land use planning; Master plans; Mode choice;
Transportation planning; New Jersey; Travel data
Availability: Transportation Research Board Business Office
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